


storm impending

by popsiclestick



Series: Post Island Arc [2]
Category: Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Genre: Gen, Post-Lord of the Flies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-04
Updated: 2015-06-04
Packaged: 2018-04-02 21:54:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4075171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/popsiclestick/pseuds/popsiclestick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set two years before Us that Remain, this is a short story involving Ralph and his older brother on a ship about to meet its grim end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	storm impending

**Author's Note:**

> (this is the brother Jack mentions in the main fic)

Ralph ran up the shaking stairs to the navigation bridge. He felt the cold metal under his boot shudder, then groan as he sprinted down the small corridor, his hands colliding with the thin walls either side of him. Skidding round a corner, he flung himself around a questioning midshipman and through the doorway into the small room where a group of sailors were gathered around a tall individual, who appeared to be issuing orders.

His brother turned around to see his dishevelled younger sibling silhouetted in the doorway, and frowned.

‘What were your orders?’

Ralph swallowed, and fiddled with his sleeve. ‘Sébas-’

‘I said, what were your orders?’

Ralph bit his lip, hard. ‘To oversee civilian evacuation.’

‘Would you care to repeat that, Lieutenant?’

‘I was ordered to oversee civilian evacuation.’

‘And I would to like to see that done.’ He took a step closer, and spoke in a low voice. ‘I promised Father that you would not be harmed. You are not to blindly act at a time like this. Go.’

Ralph’s eyes narrowed. His brother, like in every other argument, reiterated his father’s words. A man that had little care for his sons, and what he lacked in affection he made up for in ambition. Both his sons were to follow him into the Navy, he said, and become suitable servicemen to fight the Russian threat.

‘Like Father cared,’ he said, ‘when all he wanted was for us to throw ourselves into danger in the first place. Why are we even here in the -’

‘This is not the time,’ said Sébastien, ‘to argue. Go! Now!’

Ralph opened his mouth as if to retort, but Sébastien’s crimson face said otherwise. He turned from the staring eyes of the officers and stepped out into the shaking metal corridor, striding past lines of orderlies, ignoring shouts from the sub lieutenants and staggering into the galley as the boat shuddered again beneath his boots. He raised his hand against a jet of steam that spouted from a burst pipe and dived into the clattering cacophony of the ship’s kitchen.

No time for formalities. The warship was losing buoyancy. Fast. In the mass of panicked galley staff, he located his understudy, SLt Parker, and grabbed his shoulder.

The sub lieutenant spun around, eyes wide. ‘Ralph!’

Ralph didn’t bother to correct him on his title, but pointed at the havoc in the galley. Civilian officers were jostling around another burst pipe, more steam tumbling into the already crowded space.

‘I need you to sort out this lot. I need to get back to my brother.’

Parker winced. ‘About that. I’ve been told to go to the engine. The boys down there are trapped. One of the components blew. Whole room imploded.’ He scratched the back of his head, and flushed. ‘I’ve got to go and help them out.’

Ralph drew in a breath.  ‘All right. I’ll take this lot off.’

Parker turned to go, and Ralph put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Be safe,’ he said. The teen stared at his boots. ‘I can’t say that, Lieutenant.’

The blond stared after his subordinate for a few seconds, then turned to face the carnage.

-

Sébastien St Clair stood with his subordinates at the evacuation point, narrowed eyes directed at the lifeboats that were already being lowered off the tilting ship. The cold wind blew tufts of hair from under his cap, his hunched figure silhouetted against the white sky.

_Where is he?_

He scanned the crowd for his brother, his eye catching in any lone figure making his way through the milling officers, and  eventually spotted a chink of gold hair under an officer’s cap, leading a bedraggled line of civilian officers to a lifeboat. The figure raised his head, locked eyes with him, and edged his way over.

‘Parker!’ his brother gasped. ‘Where is he?’

‘Christian Parker? The sub lieutenant?’

He looked away at Ralph’s vigorous nod. ‘I can’t say I’ve seen him.’

Ralph frowned. ‘He was meant to get the engineers out then return here-’ He grabbed the nearest railings as another shudder ran through the vast ship, its tilt becoming more pronounced. The officers began moving the lifeboats with more urgency.

Ralph’s mouth was set, but his mind was racing. If he went back now, there was a possibility they could both die. But. If he didn’t, Christian’s fate was certain. Dead. He blinked, and a flicker of a memory came to him. A mountain. A ship, and a fat boy making his way with painful progress up the side. Slowly. Painfully. Indecision gnawed at his mind as he stood there, wild eyed, paralysed -

‘I need to get him.’

‘What?’

‘They should be here by now.’

Sébastien breathed in sharply. ‘No. No. Absolutely not. Against protocol. His welfare is not your concern. Take your section off this ship.’ He turned back to face his younger brother, only to see him already cleaving a line through the crowd. Sébastien’s throat tightened. _No_.

‘Ralph! Lieutenant! Return to your post!’

Ralph glanced back, a lone pale face in a sea of moving bodies. And carried on.

A long time ago, Sébastien St Clair had made a promise to his father. A promise that he couldn’t afford to break.

‘Excuse me. Excuse me,’ he said through gritted teeth, making his way through the bodies, elbowing those who were less willing to budge. ‘Ralph!’

He stumbled out of the crowd, and glanced wildly to the left and right, but Ralph was nowhere to be seen. He heard the clang of metal swinging shut, however, and darted towards it, spinning the wheel on the safe-like door. He grunted with the weight of the thing, and darted through the gap he had created before it swung back, an ominous bong that echoed through the shuddering passage he found himself in. He could hear a rhythmic footfall down the corridor to his right, and so darted after the sound, his own slightly longer gait out of time with the sound ahead. He spun round a corner, and jogged down a tiny staircase, each metallic clang crashing against his ears. He felt the back of his neck prickle with sweat - or fear, he couldn’t tell which - as he descended into the hellish centre of the vessel, Ralph’s footfalls a constant guide ahead.

‘Ralph!’

The weak lighting strips were flickering as Sébastien edged his way through the shuddering tunnel, the suffocating heat and the faint vibration under his feet the only indication of their proximity to the engine room. He heard the footfalls ahead abruptly stop. He stumbled down the last stretch of corridor, and saw, in the doorway to the engine room, a huddled shape silhouetted against the flames of the burning engine. He edged closer, and found that the figure was trembling.

‘Ralph.’

His brother turned his head towards the noise, his eyes wide. A deer caught in crosshairs. Sébastien came forward into the flickering light.

‘Couldn’t let you go alone.’ he said softly.

Ralph looked sick.

‘He said that too,’ he said, ‘back then. When we were…’ he looked away, grimaced. ‘The island.’

Back then. Sébastien never did find out what happened to his brother after his flight had crashed in the Pacific. Sometimes he thought he’d rather not.

All he knew was that Ralph was never right after his return.

Sébastien looked away. ‘You find him?’

When no response came, he crouched down next to his brother. ‘We need to go.’

He realised, then, what had happened. In the half light, what had appeared to be one figure was clearly two. Ralph was crouched next to the corpse of his friend, his hands flat on the floor in the trickle of red that came from the lump of twisted metal in his chest. Behind the smouldering remains of the engine, he could see more figures, some moving, some groaning, and he felt nauseated.

‘Yeah.’ Ralph’s voice was scarcely audible. ‘One of the engines exploded.’

Sébastien pulled his coat tighter. There was no chill in the room, and he felt cold to the bones. ‘We’re not going to save them. Leave him,’ he said, ‘come with me.’

Ralph shivered, and dragged himself to his feet. His eyes did not leave the bloody halo around his friend.

They started walking, then jogging, down the maze of corridors to reach the outside. Ralph was in a stupor, his eyes glazed as he stumbled through the passage, only seeming to remember that the ship was sinking when a new shudder ripped through the corridor. He looked up, and for the first time in what felt like eternity, spoke. ‘The engine. I know the sound. The second one’s going to blow.’

Sébastien started. ‘We need to run,’ he said, and roughly grabbed his brother’s arm as he broke out into a sprint.

‘Wait! Wa-’ Ralph spluttered. His arm flailed, but his feet found purchase on the metal floor, his lethargy gone. The pair thundered down the twisting corridor.

 The temperature dropped with each step they took, their breath mist that they burst through moments later. The ever present rumbling had lessened to a slight groan, which Ralph’s fevered brain interpreted as a good sign, until

_BOOM_

The air shattered and their bodies were thrown against the wall, the rusted metal cutting a thousand tiny scratches into Ralph’s face, his clothes, his hands. He slid down the wall, a part of his scattered mind that wasn’t in pain dully registering the cartoonishness of the situation, in his arm a dull throbbing from where he had raised it in vain to protect his face.He gingerly opened his eyes, and found that his vision was blurred to match the pounding in his head. The corridor was shaking even more than before.  His hand scrabbled against the wall for support, and he dragged himself up from his unnatural position on the floor.

He peered at the now dark corridor in front of him - the weak lighting strips had been obliterated - and located his brother, a spread eagled shape on the floor some feet ahead. Ralph dragged himself over to him, and felt his pulse. Faint. But there. With the touch, his eyelids began to flicker.

‘Wha-’

‘Come on.’

The only sound was the shrieking of metal against metal, and his brother’s laboured breathing. Ignoring his mumbled protests, Ralph slung Sébastien’s arm around his shoulder, and hefted the taller man into a standing position.

‘Must have been another torpedo, Seb,’ Ralph coughed, and he saw flecks of red on his hand. ‘Right next to where we were. Got us good.’ He laughed once, a short, harsh sound, and shrugged his brother higher on his shoulder, for he had began to slip, and kept shuffling painfully forward.

They turned a corner, and a blast of light flooded the corridor, which he raised his arm to shield his arm against. Wind, cold, laced with salt, blew their hair back, and the feeble pair stumbled out onto tilting deck. The many men that had populated the area minutes before had all evacuated and the siblings resembled a lone speck on the steel expanse of the deck. The air howled around them, whisking away the words that Sébastien was mouthing at his brother.

‘What?’

‘Leave me here,’ he coughed.

Ralph stared at him.

Sébastien frowned at the white sky. ‘You’re going to need to get to a lifeboat. You also need full usage of your limbs. And I,’ he said, gesturing with a sad smile to the bloody mess of his calf, ‘have not.’

Ralph’s mouth was dry. ‘I’m not leaving you.’

Sébastien opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, another spasm ripped through the metal below them, knocking both off their feet. Ralph skidded across the surface, finally crashing against a block of steel - possibly a vent - which caused a ringing in his ears, and, if he felt his face, a small rivulet of blood trickled from his temple. He crawled, again, over to his brother, who, again, was not moving, and again, put a finger below his jaw to feel his pulse. Like last time, it was there, even weaker than before. Ralph took his brother by his heavy coat and shook him roughly.

‘Sébastien. Wake up.’

His eyes, this time, did not open.

‘Wake up!’

A faint movement from his lips caused Ralph grab him again.

‘Sébastien!’

His brother’s lips moved again, and this time, faint sound came out.

‘Ralph. Go,’ said his brother, in a voice so small Ralph strained to hear it above the wind. ‘I’m not going anywhere. Go.’

Ralph trembled. ‘No. I’m not. I can’t.’

‘Look at me, Ralph,’, Sébastien coughed out the words like it drained him to speak them, ‘I can’t go. Get off this ship and live. It’s what -’ he faltered, ‘It’s what Dad wanted.’

‘I don’t care what Dad wanted.’ Sobs began to rack the blond’s body. ‘I can’t leave you here. I- I -’

‘Shh.’ Sébastien coughed, then spluttered, new splotches of crimson appearing amongst the old stains. ‘Go.’

From fathoms within the ship, a deep rumbling spread, growing only with each precious second. Ralph could feel the deep vibration from the cavernous space below him, a trembling that reached his palms and resonated through his body, matching his own fearful shivering. A rumble of thunder, or something that sounded like it, and then the shrieking of metal on metal: the ship was finally sinking.

Ralph looked back at his brother. His eyes had rolled back in his head, his body racked with spasms. The pitiful figure on the ground, so unlike the figurehead he had once known, was going into shock. He painfully rose to his knees, and looked from his brother, to the edge of the ship, to his brother again. His spasms had stopped - was he gone? Was he dead? Ralph felt a cold dissociation that came with the panic - and in that steel, unfeeling second, he realised that imminent death was unavoidable if he didn’t get off the vessel. Hating himself, he shrugged off his heavy coat and laid it over the now unmoving body of his brother. If he wasn’t dead, he soon would be, and Ralph swallowed the searing guilt that racked his frame as he clung to the cold ladder that led down to the churning grey mass of the sea below. Quickly he descended, greeted with surprised shouts from his crew, who were still amassed round in bobbing lifeboats. A burly midshipman grabbed his waist as he reached the final rung, heaving his tired body into the nearest seat. The boats began to move as one, towards another looming shape on the horizon. Ralph realised, dully, that they were being picked up by another naval ship. Another memory swam to the surface, but as Ralph reached for it, disappeared again into the depths of his repressed subconscious. A face Ralph didn’t recognise asked him a question. The words, however, converged into one, and he continued to stare at the same grey patch of horizon.

‘Lieutenant!’

Ralph blinked.

‘I said, were there any others?’

His brain processed the words slowly, like treacle through a sieve. His thoughts turned towards a broken body on a steel deck.

‘No.’ he said.


End file.
